1. Introduction

1.1. Welcome and introduction President Kazuo Tanie called the meeting to order at 9:10 AM.

1.2. Approval of the current agenda and past minutes The minutes of Saturday, May 1, 2004 and the agenda were approved.

1.3. Report on the status of the society President Kazuo Tanie gave some brief comments on the status of the society.

2. Internal Activities

2.1. Financial activities2.1.1., 2.1.2. Treasurer and Vice President for Financial Activities report Treasurer Xiaoping Yun and VP for Financial Activities Tony Maciejewski gave this report on the financial situation of the society. This report included mention of a number of proposals with financial implications, most of which would be voted on at other times during the meeting.

Motion: Senior Past-President Steve Hsia led the discussion of the motion to approve an annual $1000 commercialization award. An amendment passed unanimously to make the duration of the award 2 years starting in 2006, after which time the award would be reevaluated. The motion to approve this amended motion passed unanimously.Motion: Tony Maciejewski moved that the unexpended portion of the $25K promotion budget allocated to TASE be rolled over to the 2005 TASE budget to allow for the distribution of one issue of TASE to all RAS members. This motion passed unanimously.

2.1.3. Business plan discussion and approval President-Elect Dick Volz gave this report on the business plan and presented these motions for approval.

Motion: Dick Volz moved that the business process model outlined in the previous documents be approved. This motion passed unanimously.Motion: Dick Volz moved that the business principles outlined in the previous documents be approved. This motion passed unanimously.

2.2. Industrial activities VP for Industrial Activities Sukhan Lee presented this report on the Industrial Activities Board. He also presented four motions and proposals.

Motion:Sukhan Lee moved that the Standards Committee report to the Industrial Activities Board rather than the Technical Activities Board [PDF][DOC]. VP for Technical Activities Roland Siegwart supported this motion and suggested that the Bylaws reflect this understanding, though this was not part of the motion. (This issue currently is not addressed in the Bylaws.) The motion passed unanimously. Sukhan Lee also requested that IAB regional chairs and task force committee chairs be indicated in the RAS webpage. Motion:Sukhan Lee moved that $2K be allocated for the new IEEE/IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation to be held at ICRA 2005.[PDF][DOC] The motion passed unanimously. Motion:Sukhan Lee moved that $3K be allocated to the First IEEE RAS IAB Roadmap Task Force Workshop on Intelligent Service Robotics to be held in Seoul, Korea, Dec. 2004.[PDF][DOC] The motion passed with one abstention. Motion:Sukhan Lee moved that $5K be allocated for a one-year operating budget for IAB.[PDF][DOC] The motion passed unanimously.

Motion: Roland Siegwart moved to form a new technical committee on humanoid robots, chaired by George Lee. The motion passed unanimously.

2.4. Member activities VP for Member Activities Makoto Kaneko gave this report on member activities.

Motion: Makoto Kaneko moved that student registration at future ICRA's, beginning in 2005, offer options for students to bundle IEEE membership fees with the ICRA registration fee. If the ICRA student registration fee is f, then a student would pay f+x to both register for ICRA and pay the IEEE membership fee, and f+x+y to register for ICRA, pay the IEEE membership fee, and pay the RAS membership fee, where x is expected to be $15 and y is expected to be $10. The motion passed unanimously. Motion: Makoto Kaneko requested a budget of $10K/year for two years to fund chapter activities. Chapters would be allowed to submit proposals to the member activities board requesting up to $1K to fund technical activities such as mini-symposia or workshops. The motion passed unanimously. Motion: Makoto Kaneko requested that the AdCom approve $10K/year for three years to support the IEEE/IFRR School of Robotics Science. After some discussion, a motion was made to amend the amount to $20K/year. This amendment passed by a vote of 13 in favor, 1 opposed, and 4 abstentions. The original motion, with this amendment, then carried by a vote of 14 in favor, 3 opposed, and 1 abstention. As this money will be requested from our reserves as an IEEE initiative, a formal proposal with budget will have to be submitted to IEEE in the future, and AdCom understands that a detailed proposal will be submitted to AdCom for consideration at a future AdCom meeting.

Senior Past-President Steve Hsia gave this report on the awards and fellow nomination committee.

3. Other activities

3.1. Nominations committee report and VP election Past President Paolo Dario gave this report on the work of the Nominations Committee to identify candidates for the upcoming AdCom election (members to begin service in 2005). IEEE will send out the ballots to RAS membership shortly. Paolo Dario also described the process for choosing VP-elect candidates. There was some discussion of how to get younger members involved in the society. While the Nominations Committee came up with a slate of three candidates for each of the six VP positions, in five of the cases all but one nominee declined to run. The candidates who did not decline were: VP for Technical Activities: Ken Goldberg; VP for Publications Activities: Bill Hamel; VP for Conference Activities: T.J. Tarn; VP for Member Activities: Antonio Bicchi and Krzysztof Kozlowski; VP for Financial Activities: Tony Maciejewski; and VP for Industrial Activities: Sukhan Lee. Written statements from each candidate were circulated by email, and printed copies were handed out at the meeting. Each candidate (or proxy for candidates who were unable to attend for legitimate reasons) gave a three-minute presentation. This was followed by up to two minutes of Q&A. After all presentations for each position, voting members voted by secret ballot for that position. The results are listed below, as counted by the Tally Committee consisting of Peter Luh and Wesley Snyder.VP for Technical Activities: Ken Goldberg (16 votes)

Seventeen voting members were present at the time of the elections (Li-Chen Fu had left), but only 16 votes were cast for five of the elections. Paolo Dario also indicated that Dick Volz plans to appoint Shigeki Sugano as Secretary and Xiaoping Yun as Treasurer.

3.2. RAS Secretary report Secretary Kevin Lynch gave this brief report, indicating that Constitutional amendments, shelved at the previous AdCom, would be raised again; that board standing rules should be formalized and published; and that inconsistencies among the Constitution, Bylaws, and standing rules would be investigated.

2. Internal activities (continued)

2.5. Publications activities VP for Publications Activities Bill Hamel gave this report on publications activities, this report on the Transactions on Robotics, and this report on the Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. Dick Volz gave a brief update on the status of the Transactions on Mechatronics negotiations with the Industrial Electronics Society. The matter is currently in arbitration at IEEE, with a decision expected by November of 2004.

2.6. Conference activities Max Meng, filling in for VP for Conference Activities T. J. Tarn, gave this report on conference activities. Shigeki Sugano gave this list of approved sponsored and co-sponsored conferences. Alicia Casals presented this report on the status of the upcoming ICRA 2005 conference in Barcelona.

2.7. President-Elect activities President-Elect Dick Volz gave this report on the activities of the Long-Range Planning Committee.

4. New Business

4.1. New business There was no new business. 4.2. Next AdCom meeting and adjourn The next AdCom meeting will be held in Barcelona on Saturday, April 23, 2005, after the conclusion of ICRA 2005. The meeting was adjourned at 16:03.